


writing a love letter armed only with a french-english dictionary

by orphan_account



Category: Original Work
Genre: Alternate Universe - High School, F/F, F/M, M/M, Secret Admirer
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-11-04
Updated: 2019-11-04
Packaged: 2021-01-23 04:27:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,044
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21314161
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: french transfer student maisy pascal immediately gets a crush on a girl that was nice to her. does everyone in america do this? why do southerners speak so weird? why is john miller so cute? these questions and more are posed in this self-indulgent bullshit.
Relationships: Original Female Character/Original Female Character, Original Female Character/Original Male Character, Original Male Character/Original Male Character





	writing a love letter armed only with a french-english dictionary

**Author's Note:**

  * For [my good good gf](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=my+good+good+gf).

> this is an au to a story i've been working on because what is plot progression. i wanted to post it because i dunno maybe someone will like it? i guess i want someone to read it so hope you like it without context?

Maisy generally didn't think of herself as a sappy person. It's better to just label and admit your feelings and leave it at that. Digging around for purpose or examples was… pointless. If not embarrassing.  
Ogling and daydreaming in feeling was not her cup of tea. It doesn't help that she's more than unused to feeling anything but hollow depression or spite. And Maisy finds she can't stand most change. So, logically, the same should apply to silly love letters simply dripping with that sort of stuff. Unfortunately, her crush is hard to read, if not oblivious.  
For the initial confession letter, she decided to go short, sweet, and simple. An overview of the circumstances and qualities of her… love, she guessed it must be described. She typed and edited the first draft, making sure her grammar and English were correct before perfecting it and carefully translating it to paper. After letting the ink dry she neatly folded the paper in an eggshell envelope before stamping a blue-purple wax seal onto it, finally scribbling "for j. miller" on the front.  
Arriving at school, she stopped by her and John's first period classroom, placing it on (what she hoped was) the correct desk, before heading to her usual occupance in the library. She passed a familiar face in the hall and shot them a smile that probably looked like a grimace. They looked her in the eye and didn't respond. She didn't know if she did something wrong. Arriving in the library, Maisy slipped in her earbuds and mouthed familiar words to French songs silently until the bell rang. 

Transferring to a new school, new house, new country, had quite drastically changed Maisy. She was never good in her English classes, and the 'hands on' approach isn't going so hot either. She doesn't respond when people talk English too fast and when she does, it's short and blunt, usually followed with muttered French insulting the asker. And though she knows she's over aggressive and impolite, she almost revels in the simple disobedience, sneering when she sees anger and disappointment on a suitors' face. John had been a little different, offering to help her in English and telling her about typical American traditions, not sounding out her words in that annoying way. It was nice, and Maisy didn't know if she could handle only venting to her cat much longer. So she embraced the olive branch gingerly extended to her, following John on her heels like a spoiled puppy. She still was somewhat formal and stiff, but she became very fond of John, even if it's currently unregistered to the latter.  
Squeezing through the thick stampede of teenagers, Maisy burst into the slightly emptier classroom she was in just 30 minutes before. Thinking back, she could've probably stayed, but that'd be pretty suspicious, right? And she didn't want to stumble over small talk when the teacher entered anyway.  
Finally in her seat, Maisy not-so-subtly stared at John in her desk, which she apparently had gotten right, staring with wide eyes at the unfolded letter. Maisy coughed and looked back forward, adjusting her glasses. They weren't prescription, like John's brother, Thomas's were, but she secretly thought she looked cute and mysterious with them, and no one in America knew her well enough to refute it.  
Maisy could see other people noticed John's letter as well, cooing and getting into her space about it. That would have bothered Maisy, but John seemed fine with it, if not a little flustered about them trying to read the letter. Maybe it was because of her almost familial relationship with what seems like everyone. John's lived in this deep country town her whole life, apparently. Maisy couldn't imagine being stuck in one place like that for so long, it must be suffocating. John laughed when she told her that, saying,  
"Maybe y’all jus’ don't have a place to call home yet." Maisy didn't understand that, she's had plenty of houses, but just nodded awkwardly instead of voicing any of that.  
When the teacher finally entered, John slipped the letter back in the envelope and shooed everyone away before he could notice. Maisy sighed before joining John’s gaze to the blackboard. She’d ask her about it during lunch. 

Maisy unpacked her lunch on a wooden picnic table under a large tree outside. Although it was late autumn, the climate was still much warmer than what she was used to, the cafeteria made her sweat in her layered uniform. Even if they didn’t know how to properly work the AC, the school’s courtyard is well-maintained by whichever employees do that here. Although she let her family move to this maudit merde tro, her mother was very insistent on Maisy being in an “exclusive private school” in the area, Sage’s Academy for Gifted Children. Maisy thought it sounded like putain de connerie, and it mostly was. Almost anyone who applied could get in, and the classes were embarrassingly easy. Maisy’s lowest grade was a 96, and that was for her garbage English. At least Franklin, the son of the headmaster, was pretty nice for a junior, though Maisy was pretty sure he had been trying to sell her cannabis during their brief introduction. The school grounds are alright as well, if not small.  
John suddenly plopped down next to her, making her jump.  
“Oh! Sorry about that! Didn’t mean to scare ya. How’s your day been?” she smiled apologetically, her loud friend Matthew sliding in the bench across from them, dragging a tired-looking boy next to him, chattering about something that was too fast for Maisy to try and understand, but must’ve been slightly amusing as the guy had a loose smirk on his face. Matthew had apparently been a childhood friend of John’s, the son of her church’s pastor or something. John and him used to talk all the time, but lately he’s been paying more attention to this kid, who she was pretty sure was at least a year above them, leaving John’s time for Maisy, to her satisfaction. Speaking of… Maisy turned and met John’s questioning brown gaze. Merde, John was still looking at her, waiting for a response.  
“Oh, euh, pardonne moi! It is… good, okay, euh… How was… your day?” Maisy stuttered, trying to remember if she’s said that right. John just smiled, eyes glancing around in thought,  
“Uh...Bien!” Maisy snorted, John had insisted to learn a few simple words in French to talk to her with, despite Maisy’s objections, and her accent was as sweet as it was ridiculous. The moment was (perhaps thankfully) short-lived, as two large mocha hands covered John’s eyes.  
“Guess who, Jojo?” grinned Thomas, dimples creasing his round cheeks.  
“Tommy! Stop calling me that!” John barked, half-laughing and spun around, pretending to land punches in her older brother’s chubby stomach, and he doubled over in mock-pain, groaning. Maisy brought herself farther to the edge of the table so Thomas and his girlfriend could sit with them. They weren’t able to all the time, being fairly busy seniors, John has complained many times about Thomas skipping meals in favor of schoolwork or writing, apparently being an aspiring author or something.  
His girlfriend, Hiina, Maisy knows better. She was her “guide” when Maisy first transferred, and current part-time translator, was some kind of genius in languages and was a transfer herself in her sophomore year. She’s kind and soft spoken, a hint of her Chinese descent in her voice, and became the second person in school Maisy decided she liked. So she was glad they came to join them, while John was purely ecstatic, sliding next to Maisy’s side as Thomas sat to her right, Hiina across from him. Half-hearted greetings were exchanged, before Matthew started, as if to remember something, before announcing, finger pointed at John,  
“Oh my gosh! John! You gotta tell everyone about your secret admirer!” John coughed awkwardly,  
“Uh, I dunno whatcha talkin' bout…"  
“Secret admirer?” drawled Thomas, seemingly delighted.  
“You don’t have to tell us if you don’t want-” interjected Hiina.  
“It’s my right as brother to hear about it first. Jo, c’mon, spill the beans.”  
“Don’t call me-”  
“What!? It’s my right as best friend to hear first!”  
“This is so dumb! I’ll just tell y’all all at once! Though it's not nearly as excitin’ as you’re makin’ it out to be,” John laughed, accent becoming more strong in her nervousness, pointedly glancing at Matthew and Thomas, before continuing,  
“So I got to class this mornin’, and I was tryin’ to catch up onna homework from last night, and there was this fancy-lookin letter on my desk! At first I was like, ‘Oh no, Immin trouble,’ though I couldn’t think of a reason why, but my name was handwritten, all personal-like, and I was like, ‘What?’ So then I thought it might be a party invitation-”  
“Just get to the part about what it said!” Matthew groaned.  
“Fine! Fine! So, uh, I opened it, and it was really nice, complimentin’ me ‘n stuff, calling me pretty, and nice, and uh, stuff like that. It was nice! I don’t know, it was really kinda pers’nal, but uh…” Maisy, flushing, stopped trying to translate her increasingly southern slang, focusing on the lunches splayed on the table in front of her, desperate to think of anything else.  
Maisy had bought lunch from her favorite (and only) sushi place in town, her family didn't have homemade meals unless it was Maisy forced to make one, everything placed carefully in their respective spots in her bento box, and three cat-shaped sugar cookies she made last night. Across the table, Matthew’s friend had a dry burger from the cafeteria, some fries, and chocolate milk. Matthew himself had a lunch resembling that of a kid’s; a peanut-butter and jelly sandwich, apple slices, juice box, and loose candy thrown into his small lunch bag. Hiina next to him sported a homemade strawberry and peach smoothie with flax seeds, a carton of soy milk from the cafeteria, and a plastic bag of mixed walnuts and dried apricots. Thomas poked at his half-eaten salad within a tupperware container beside his bottle of green tea and another container filled with leftover chicken matching John’s, presumably what they ate for dinner last night.  
Besides the chicken, John sported a large apple, a metal flower-print water bottle, and stir-fry vegetables she apparently home-grown. Her food remained untouched due to the dramatic telling of a plan Maisy is regretting largely. But, her eyes were bright and she seems happy… maybe more than usual? It was probably wishful thinking, but it wasn't doing any harm, right?  
The sound of her name in the rambling conversation quickly brought her to reality again.  
"-yeah so she might have, right? Maisy, did you see anyone put down the letter? You get to school early, yeah?" Matthew's eyebrow quirked, eyes staring at her, mirrored in everyone else at the table. Maisy's skin crawled, too aware of her rapid pulse and rolling stomach. She'd thought she was in control of her anxiety, but the move seemed to pull everything back up again.  
"No, I, I was occupying the b- library this morning. Maybe, uh, it was MacDonald? He looks at her often, I think." The table seemed to mull this over, and Hiina gave Maisy a thumbs-up for, what, talking? Maybe it was more wordy than usual, oh god, is that suspicious? She can be interested in this too, though, right? Or is it not her place? Is she even their friend? Why is she here? She watches everyone talk, animated, like that have a place here, like they belong. Maisy doesn't belong. They don't want her illiterate dialogue and arrogant attitude here, who would? She needs to leave, no one wants her here, they hate her, she should just leave, go, die-  
A hand softly touched her elbow, and John's radiant, caring face looked at her, noticed her, as if she wanted Maisy to be comfortable. Here. With her.  
"Tu vas bien?"  
And Maisy couldn't help the dreamy, awestruck smile that crept on her face. She doesn't care how embarrassing the results are, she'll keep writing letters for her, as long as she feels like this.  
"Amoureuse, chérie."

**Author's Note:**

> i am NOT bilingual, i'm sure its pretty obvious but if you are I would actually adore some criticism and tips if ya don't mind. ❤💕❤


End file.
